Chapter 8: Rehab Rivalries
The physio room hummed. Not with the roar of a stadium, but with the low-grade, persistent whir of a blood circulation machine wrapped around Ally’s calf, the rhythmic hiss-pump of another device massaging his thigh. The air was astringent with the scent of rubbing alcohol and clean sweat. Roz sat on the worn couch, her sketchbook a stark white island in the sterile sea of grey mats and chrome equipment.
Ally was on his back on the floor, eyes closed, as Fiona manipulated his ankle through a series of tiny, precise rotations. His face was a study in passive endurance. Roz’s charcoal flew, capturing not the grand athlete but the patient. The delicate architecture of his foot in Fiona’s capable hands, the way his toes unconsciously curled in resistance, then relaxed. She was deep in the map of this minute struggle when the door banged open.
Gregor “Grezza” McTavish filled the doorway, his bulk seeming to suck the oxygen from the room. He was in training kit, a grass stain smeared across one massive shoulder. He nodded at Fiona, ignored Roz completely, and fixed his gaze on Ally.
“There you are. Hiding again.” His voice was a cheerful boom, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “We’re doing units on the pitch. Tactical. Coach wants everyone’s head in the game, even the convalescents on the balcony.”
Ally didn’t open his eyes. “Tell him my head’s currently residing in my medial collateral ligament. It’s a bit crowded in there.”
“Funny.” Grezza took a step in, his gaze sweeping over the equipment, the sketchbook, Roz. “Hogging all the team resources, Fraser. First the physio, now you’ve got your own personal biographer.” He finally acknowledged her with a flick of his chin. “How’s the portrait of the fallen idol coming?”
Roz’s charcoal stilled. “It’s coming.”
“I bet it is.” He turned his attention back to Ally, a smirk playing on his lips. “Seriously, mate. You’ve moved in here. Some of us have actual knocks that need seeing to, not just… artistic supervision.”
Ally opened one eye. A slow, lazy smile spread across his face. He raised his head slightly, looking down at his own leg, then back at Grezza. “Jealous you’re not the muse, Grez?” He gave a deliberate, slight flex of his quadricep. The movement was small, but in the context of the room, it was a statement. “I hear the light in here is very forgiving. For the complexion.”
Grezza’s smirk hardened. He took another step, his voice dropping, losing its performative cheer. “Aye, right. The muse. Is that what you call it? You’re not the only one who’s noticed how much of her time you’re consuming, Fraser. Inside this fucking clinic and out.”
The words landed like a dumbbell dropped on rubber mats. Thudding, final.
Roz felt the charcoal slip from her fingers. It hit the sketchbook with a soft, dark crack, smudging the careful lines of Ally’s foot.
Ally’s smile vanished. It didn’t fade; it was erased. He pushed himself up onto his elbows, the movement swift, disregarding Fiona’s restraining hand on his shoulder. The circulation machine whined in protest. The room seemed to contract, the sterile brightness suddenly feeling interrogative.
“What did you say?” Ally’s voice was low, quiet. It wasn’t a shout. It was something far more dangerous.
Grezza held his ground, but a flicker of uncertainty crossed his face. He’d meant to needle, to banter, but he’d struck something solid and live. “I said, you’re taking the piss. We all see it. The dinners, the texts, you coming here for your daily portrait session. It’s a commission, not a courtship. Some of the lads think you’ve forgotten the difference.”
The air turned to glass. Roz could hear her own heartbeat in her ears, a frantic counter-rhythm to the hiss-pump of the machine.
Ally swung his legs off the plinth, ignoring Fiona’s sharp “Alistair, don’t!” He planted his good foot, his body a tense coil of contained motion. He wasn’t looking at Roz. His entire focus was on Grezza, a blue laser of intensity.
“My relationship with the artist,” Ally said, each word clipped and precise, “is my business. The commission’s business. Not locker room gossip. Not your business.”
“It’s team business if it’s a distraction!” Grezza shot back, rallying, his face flushing. “You’re supposed to be focusing on getting back, not playing patron of the fucking arts!”
“And you’re supposed to be a teammate.” Ally’s voice dropped even further. “Not a commentator on my private life. What I do with my time outside of training and treatment is mine. And if you, or any of the ‘lads,’ have a problem with how I’m handling this, you can say it to my face. Clearly. Like you just did. But you leave her out of it.”
The ‘her’ hung in the antiseptic air. Possessive. Protective. Absolute.
Roz felt a hot-cold flush sweep through her. This wasn’t the gentle man who’d kissed her palm. This was the player from the pitch, the one who could channel quiet fury into devastating force. He was defending her, but he was also claiming something, and the weight of it was terrifying.
Grezza stared at him. The bravado drained away, leaving a sullen confusion. He’d expected a defensive joke, a brush-off. He hadn’t expected this cold, territorial fury. He shrugged, a massive, dismissive roll of his shoulders. “Whatever, mate. Just saying what everyone’s thinking. Don’t let the portrait get in the way of the comeback.”
He turned and left, the door swinging shut behind him with a soft, pneumatic sigh.
The silence he left behind was vast and humming. The machines sounded obscenely loud. Fiona cleared her throat. “Alright. Drama over. On your back, Alistair. We’re not done.”
Ally didn’t move. He was still staring at the door, his breathing measured but deep, his shoulders rigid. Then, slowly, he turned his head and looked at Roz.
The anger was still there, banked in his eyes, but now it was mixed with something else—a raw, apprehensive vulnerability. He’d shown his hand completely. To Grezza. To her.
Roz looked down at her sketchbook. The smudged charcoal had obliterated the careful drawing. It was now just a messy, dark cloud, like the aftermath of an explosion. She closed the book softly.
“I should go,” she heard herself say. Her voice sounded distant. “Let you finish your session.”
“Roz—” he started, taking a step toward her, his gait uneven.
“It’s fine,” she interrupted, standing up, gathering her bag. She couldn’t meet his eyes. The intensity was too much. “He’s just… being Grezza. It doesn’t matter.”
But it did matter. Courtship. The word echoed in the sterile room. It was crude, reductive, and terrifyingly accurate in its own way. It named the thing that had been growing in the quiet spaces between gold leaf and pizza boxes, in shared glances and whispered confessions.
“It matters to me,” Ally said, his voice rough. “What they say. What they think about you.”
Now she looked at him. The possessiveness was still there, but it was tempered by a pleading honesty. He wasn’t just defending his territory; he was trying to shield hers.
“I can handle gossip, Ally,” she said, though her trembling hands belied the statement. “You need to handle your team.”
“They’re not my priority right now.” The statement was stark, naked.
Fiona made a small, disapproving noise, a reminder of the professional space they were in.
Roz felt the walls of the clinic closing in. The map was getting confused. The lines between subject and artist, between private and public, between professional necessity and personal truth, were blurring into that charcoal smudge. She needed air. She needed her studio. She needed the clarity of a blank canvas.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said, and it was both a promise and an escape.
She walked out, leaving him standing there, caught between the plinth and the door, a monument of conflicted intention. The last thing she heard was Fiona’s firm, no-nonsense command: “On. Your. Back.”
Out in the corridor, the normal sounds of the stadium felt alien. The distant thud of a ball being kicked, the rumble of a rolling scrum machine. Roz walked quickly, her mind racing. Jealous you’re not the muse? He’d said it as a joke, a deflection. But the truth behind it, the truth Grezza had clumsily vomited into the room, was that Ally was her muse. And he was thriving on it. And somewhere in the dark, resentful part of a teammate’s mind, that was a problem.
She pushed through the heavy doors into the grey afternoon. The cold air hit her like a slap. She leaned against the rough brick of the stadium exterior, taking deep, shuddering breaths.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. A text. From Ally.
> I’m sorry. That was out of line. All of it.
She stared at the screen. The apology was for his aggression, for the scene. But not, she realized, for the sentiment behind it. Not for the possessiveness. He wasn’t sorry for that at all.
Her fingers were cold. She typed back, the truth simpler than she expected.
> He was out of line. You weren’t.
>
> See you tomorrow.
She hit send before she could overthink it. The kingdom had a new, unexpected room now: a battleground. And she was standing squarely in the middle of it, her sketchbook smudged, her map redrawn by the crude hands of gossip, her heart pounding a frantic, thrilling, terrified rhythm against her ribs.